Politics. Hatred. Endless war. We doomscroll as our rights are stripped away. Bombings. Kidnappings. Mass shootings. The nightly news is a litany of brutality. Assassination. Subjugation. Deportation. We argue with each other while the rich get richer and cruelty is normalized. These are just a few of the reasons why the title of The Casualties’ new album is Detonate. “It stems from being overloaded,” drummer Marc “Meggers” Eggers says. “You feel like your head is about to explode, which I think is what everybody is feeling these days. You’re pounced on day by day with terrible news and social media, and you just feel like you’re going to snap.” “Not too long ago, we were stuck in COVID,” guitarist Jake Kolatis adds. “Now we're trying to get back to normal life, and the world has gone crazy. There are continuous wars and internal political battles here. Everybody's tearing each other apart. Detonate is saying we’re tired of all this division. With this record, we have a chance to say something and promote some type of unity.” Detonate is the second chapter in a new epoch for The Casualties. As their second album with David Rodriguez at the mic, it solidifies the vocalist’s partnership with Meggers and Kolatis. “It’s like a new era for the band,” Meggers says. “It solidifies that Dave is here to stay.” As the follow-up to 2018’s Written in Blood and their first record for Hellcat Records—the Epitaph subsidiary curated by Tim Armstrong of Rancid—Detonate sees this new version of The Casualties locking into place. “We were in the studio for Written in Blood about eight months after I joined,” Rodriguez says. “With this new record, we really grew together. For me, it’s the proud moment where we clicked the three Legos together.” “We’re really proud of this new record,” Meggers adds. “On the first record with a new singer, you can get a little bit of leeway, but on the second record they’re really going to judge you.” With the unblinking eyes of the punk world on them, The Casualties pulled the blinds and did what they do best. “There was a degree of pressure, but not from outside sources,” Rodriguez says. “We just wanted to do the best record that we could that honors The Casualties name and history without playing the same song over and over. But it wasn’t that we even had to go out of our way. It felt natural to write this new music.”